Het Leeszaal In Het Bos

Type | Pavillion/folly

Year | 2025

Project site | Fredriksoord, Netherlands

Client | DeProef, funded under the Talent Development Grant by Stimuleringsfonds Creative Industries NL

The Reading Room at De Proef is a modular, prefabricated structure built entirely from reused materials, showcasing Contingent Design on an architectural scale. Located in Frederiksoord’s botanical garden and residency space, the project explores circular building techniques while engaging with its historical and material context. Frederiksoord, a UNESCO-listed site, was home to Dutch colony projects where the poor were relocated in the 1700s to cultivate the land. Many settlers, struggling under strict systems, formed ‘pioneer colonies’ using salvaged materials. Inspired by this resourcefulness, the Reading Room reinterprets these ideas to address today’s ecological challenges. Developed as a Living Lab since June 2024, the project enabled real-time experimentation and documentation of circular methodologies. 

The project showcases a logic of total reuse with a 98% recycled mass rate (only fastening material and the semi-transparent roof are new) an estimated 7 tonnes of CO2 sequestered, and a Milieu Prestatie Gebouwen (MPG) rating of 0.16—far surpassing the Dutch legal threshold of 0.80, set to be halved by 2030. Material sourcing played a key role, with 30% reclaimed from De Proef’s site, including timber and extruded acrylic greenhouse panels, waste wool insulation from farmers’ waste flows, mineral wool insulation from renovation of a building, concrete debris for foundations from demolition, and salvaged wood from previous constructions, which were all scavenged on-site. 

The project was built by a small team of 2-3 people experimenting with slow and care-driven labour economies aimed at restoring, repairing, and reusing as much material as possible: sanding down and restoring old window frames, washing and cleaning raw fleece, cleaning and washing 30-year-old acrylic panels. All of this was done within a limited budget of € 15,000, which shifted the project's economy from purchasing new materials to restoring old ones. A core design strategy involved separating the roof from the insulated core, integrating lower-quality salvaged materials while ensuring durability and comfort, and focusing on the detailing of parts and joints to allow for different sections to combine. This approach tailored architectural detailing to the uncertainty in the technical specifications of waste building materials.